Mourinho wants to work with Dyke

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has offered to sit down with Football Association chairman Greg Dyke to thrash out the way forward for English football.

PUBLISHED: 07:45, Sat, Sep 14, 2013

Jose Mourinho has English football's best interests at heart [PA]

Mourinho will take a team to Everton for the late afternoon Saturday match packed with foreign players including Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o, who is expected to make his Chelsea debut from the bench.

But Mourinho is adamant the future success of English football is close to his heart and he is willing to help find a solution to the issues, including foreign imports, identified by Dyke in his recent state of the nation speech.

Asked if he cared about the England team, Mourinho said: "I care, I care. I want my players to be selected, to give everything for the national team.

"I would never say to a player with a small injury don't go, stay here, forget the national team.

"When the telephone rings and it is somebody connected with the national team I pick up the phone with pleasure.

"I want to help my academy. I want to support them. I want to give my little contribution to improve everything there to try to bring English players to the top. I care, I care a lot.

"The only match I want England to lose is England v Portugal. All the other matches I want them to succeed. I have three players there at the time but if I can have four, five or six I would like to have four, five or six."

Asked if he would be happy to sit down with Dyke to help the English cause, Mourinho added: "More than happy."

Mourinho, however, believes English players are overpriced compared to the bargains which can be picked up in Europe and cited that as a reason why English players barely featured in the summer transfer window where the top clubs were concerned.

He used a young unnamed English player he had been tracking as an example.

"The position he is in the market is like he has 50 caps when he has zero caps," said Mourinho. "The price for English players in the market is very, very difficult.

"You go to a Portuguese club in a difficult situation and you buy cheap. You go to Spain where some clubs are the richest in the world but some are in a difficult situation and you make an offer and you also get the player for a reasonable price."

Mourinho paid £7.5million for Eto'o from Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala and he believes the striker will give his team the perfect balance of youth and experience.

Mourinho, who also admitted Arsenal were serious title contenders after signing his former Real Madrid player Mesut Ozil, said: "Samuel is a player adapted to the style of play we want in our team which is a bit contradictory to the general style and philosophy in the Premier League.

"We are not any more a physical, direct team. We want to use the qualities of our attacking players in a different way.

"He knows exactly the kind of movement he has to do to give continuity to the attacking game. He has a natural appetite for goals and he will score a few goals for us - and he will give us experience.

"Everybody is very young, for example against Bayern Munich (in the Super Cup) Andre Schurrle, Oscar and Eden Hazard were all under 22."